Lotus Pain
by Velvet Kordonne
Summary: Kanda dreams about Alma. Post-North American Branch incident. One-shot/vignette/flashfic/ficlet


_**Was I the only one who was pretty broken up over what happened to Alma Karma? Well, I was so I wrote a short fic that's a little like the situation in D. Gray-Man, Episode 84: "Bloody Krory" when Eliade appears to Kro. If only Alma didn't have to go out like that...  
**_

 _ **"You need to learn that life is not ever that sweet"— Skinn Bolic, D. Gray-Man, Episode 36: "Shroud of Darkness"**_

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Another train ride. Another town. Another assignment.

Kanda held Mugen close to him, the side of his face against the sword's sheath. Lush green countryside raced by the polished window at his side as the train sped towards their destination.

Behind him a few seats away, Lavi blathered on at Short Stack about some girl he met in China.

 _The kid's probably asleep by now, listening to that idiot…_

The moyashi…no, Allen Walker. Kanda remembered that he'd called him by name for the first time that day. Allen had earned that much after what he did for them at the North American Branch.

There was no way to know Kanda was so tired until he fell asleep moments later. At least Lavi wasn't talking to him death. Kanda dreamed of that darkness. A quiet, empty darkness that enveloped him like black silk. Cool and nonthreatening. Tranquil and soft. The darkness was was empty and-

Wait. Not empty.

"Hello, Yu."

Kanda jolted at hearing himself addressed by that name. His given name. Spoken by that voice.

Alma melded out of the darkness in a colorful yukata, his black hair falling to his calves.

"Don't appear to me in that disgusting form," Kanda said.

Walking towards Kanda across the fathomless darkness, Alma spoke in the same mocking, glib voice he'd used as an Akuma. He laughed that high, careless laugh. Unable to move, Kanda only watched as he drew closer.

"It's only my hair, Yu." Alma's eyes continued to smolder with heat, continued to glitter with laughter. "I'm not in the form of an Akuma."

"Don't call me—" Despite the fact that the darkness all around appeared to be open and endless, Kanda felt a wall beside him. He couldn't run left or right. Couldn't turn around and walk away. All he could do was face Alma, frown hard, and pray not to be undone by his touch.

"I'll call you whatever I want. And isn't that how I've always known you? As Yu?"

Standing inches away now, Alma placed a hand on the wall beside Kanda's head. The sleeve of his yukata slid down his pale arm.

"Stop it, Alma." _My heart pounds when you're close like this. Back off!_

Alma only smiled. That tempting smile, showing just a hint of the sweet, bubbly boy he had been when they were at the Asian Branch together as children.

"It doesn't matter what form I appear in anyway. You still want me."

 _Especially now that you know the truth._ This went unspoken between them.

"You can't help how you feel about me. You do feel, Yu. You feel for me." Alma came closer. Close enough to kiss. Close enough for Kanda to wrap his arms around. "Didn't you accept my feelings that day in Mater? Because you learned that I'm none other than her. The one you've longed for and searched for so intensely at all costs."

Kanda froze as Alma's hand covered his heart through his uniform. His eyes widened, feeling the warmth of that light touch in his core.

"Your heart's racing, Yu," he murmured.

There was a tug on his ponytail. But Alma wasn't pulling his hair.

Kanda started to frown, but Alma closed his eyes, tilted his head, and closed the inches between their faces. Their lips brushed and Kanda's heart stopped, then thundered loudly.

Alma pulled away, backing into the darkness, taking the warmth and the only light in the void with him.

"When you find him, tell Allen Walker I said thank you. Thank him for both of us, Yu."

The train skipped over a bump on the rails and Kanda woke up.

There was a careful, sneaky tugging on his ponytail. He looked to his right. Lavi was pulled up close to him braiding his hair.

"Allen went to sleep on me. I see you fell asleep, too," Lavi grinned, fingers still braiding Kanda's long hair. "Hey, you're blushing, Yu. A lot. What exactly were dreaming about?"

Kanda growled and swung Mugen at hard at the Bookman successor.

"Whoa!" Lavi jumped back out of the seat and out Kanda's striking range, releasing his hair. "Calm down, Yu, jeez…!"

Then everything started fading around the edges again. Lavi's lighthearted laughter drifted away.

Opening his eyes once more, Kanda woke from his dream within a dream, finding himself sitting with Mugen on the floor in one of the training halls. The place was one less likely to frequented by others (so he could meditate in peace, of course). Sheer irritation at that fool Lavi must have snapped him out of his cycle of dreams. For a second, he wondered if he was truly awake this time.

 _You were her, Alma. The one I searched aimlessly for. You…you were always her. The whole time. You were always the one._

Kanda stood up, Mugen in hand.

"I'll find him, Alma," he said quietly to the silent training hall. "I'll find Allen."

 _I won't be able to die in peace until I do._

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 **Author's Notes:**  
 **+Y'all know D. Gray-Man is the property of Katsura Hoshino and her producers/publishers. I do not own nor did I create any of established characters, places, objects, etc. featured in this work. This literature is a work of pure fanfiction.**

 **+"Lotus Pain" by Mashiro Ayano is the title of the ending theme of the** ** _D. Gray-Man Hallow_** **anime. The animation had several artworks featuring Kanda and Alma so I used the song title as the title of this fanfic.**

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I'm Blathering Now:

+I realized after I initially wrote this fanfic that it doesn't make a lot of sense, unless it's a dream inside of a dream. Because Allen had already defected from the Black Order by the time Kanda came back from Mater so there's no way he, Allen, and Lavi could've gone on another assignment together. I finagled it! I saved it! Dream inside of a dream—BAM, problem solved! Lol ^_^

+Why do writers and manga artists always do this to characters like Alma Karma? It makes me a little depressed because I feel like they don't see a better ending for them because they are underdogs and are different from typical heroes. So the only thing to do is kill them off for characters whose stories are easier to write, right. *rolls eyes*

+It was tragic, what happened between Kanda and Alma. But I think it helped curb some of Kanda's destructive ways. Kanda learned that what he was looking for, his reason for living on, was right in front of him the whole time (and that he nearly destroyed it again after hacking it to pieces nine years ago).

+"The train skipped over a bump in the rails"—Um, do trains do that? I know buses do but trains?

+Even though it was only there for about five seconds (2:40 to 2:45), I like Alma with all that long dark hair in _D. Gray-Man Hallow_ , episode 8: Awakening. As you can see, I included it in Kanda's dream of Alma.

+I listened to "Secret Sorrow" by Kohei Koizumi while writing Alma's seductive attitude towards Kanda in this vignette.

+In my stories, Kanda and Allen address each other by their nicknames from the original Japanese anime and the English dubbed anime. (Bakanda, moyashi, short stack)


End file.
